


bad dreams make for worse realities

by serendipitea



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Heartbreak, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Past Mikasa Ackerman/Eren Yeager, kind of? if u squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28678539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipitea/pseuds/serendipitea
Summary: And if he holds onto her tight enough he can just pretend she’s thinking of him. Of him. Just him. Him and not Eren.
Relationships: Krista Lenz | Historia Reiss/Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman/Jean Kirstein
Comments: 11
Kudos: 71





	bad dreams make for worse realities

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by art from @/icysugart on twitter!

Mikasa’s hands clench into the fabric of Jean’s sweater, head pressed into his chest and Jean almost feels like this is another dream. But his dreams aren’t ever so dreary. The rain is always soft and the pattering sound it makes echoes on the porch of their forever home making a beat for her to dance along to. And the wind is never so harsh, pushing past them like the very nature of the world knows this union is wrong. No, it’s supposed to be a rare cool breeze blowing through her hair on a humid day at the beach, her eyes shining like they never have. The sky is never so dreary when he sleeps, tonight it is rotting away. There, in his perfect world, it is bright and bursting with colour at sunsets and sunrises that he shares with her, warm and comforting even through the coldest winters.

And in his dreams the only times she cries is when she is so happy she can’t put into words. In the reality he delicately carves into his brittle mind, she holds him tight so he can feel every bit of her love.

None of this is what he’s ever wanted, this is no dream. Not because her heart aches for someone else—No, he’s always resolved to watch from afar. It’s because Mikasa is unhappy. That is Jean’s nightmare.

“Was I never enough?” Her voice is cracked, barely sounding out over the storm roaring around them.

Anger surges through his blood immediately, his hand balls into a fist at her waist.

“Mikasa!” he pulls her back by her shoulder to look right into her eyes, his gaze burning into her while his mind runs.

_That fucking idiot, Eren._

He always was a jackass, Jean knew that, but cheating? And on _Mikasa?_ Making someone— _her_ feel so insignificant. He can feel resentment bubbling up in chest.

Jean had often questioned it before— _Why him?_ In stolen glances and longing stares he’d often wondered what there was to Eren that made Mikasa so helplessly infatuated. What about his carless and stubborn demeanour did she see that was so enrapturing. Desperately, he would wonder which of his own flaws were to blame, what he should have been for her to love him like she did Eren.

He almost told her before, how he knew Eren better, how he had a fickle mind and an attitude that always got him in trouble. That she didn’t see it yet, but she would and she would hate it. That she should stop before she got in too deep.

But Mikasa was happy.

So he didn’t say anything at all.

He was foolish and afraid back then. He knows that now because when he looks into her eyes, red and puffy from crying so long, she is broken. Lost in a sea of doubt and self-deprecation that makes him all the more furious. Barely holding herself together, like if she let go from holding onto him she would fall right to her knees. Gone is the girl who wouldn’t blink twice at a petty comment. Who would never lose her temper in an argument. The one who would break up fights so she could have the back of the school to herself. Who would take every threat to her life as something pitiful to laugh at.

He doesn’t understand how Eren Yeager brought the warrior of the world to her knees.

“You are perfect,” he says with finality. Because that is the truth and he won’t hear anything against it.

She is the perfection the universe dared to make, the excellence not one person could match, the miracle that has tortured him all these years.

He drops his gaze as her tears brim to the surface again.

“Come on,” he tugs on her sleeve to get her to walk with him, “You’ll get sick like this.”

She doesn’t even have the energy to stay stiff in place. Her feet drag along behind him.

“I… I don’t want to go ho—” she stops for a second, chewing over the word before she finally whispers, “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

Jean swallows, before mustering half a grin he usually has, “You don’t think I’m going to leave you on the streets in the middle of a storm right? I know everyone says I’m an asshole, but come on…”

Her lips lift a little as her unsteady breaths come out, the ghost of a smile gracing her face.

It’s forceful, he knows it. He can see how weary she is behind that mask. She does it only so she can feel like she’s paying him back for the consolation he offers her now. Mikasa has always been like that, feeling indebted when anyone pays her even a morsel of intimacy. Like she doesn’t deserve it. That’s the only thing he’s always hated about her.

❥

Mikasa sits on the couch, his sweater is warm around her and much too long. But she likes it, it’s soft and she can play with all the loose threads to distract herself from the thoughts that are plaguing her mind. His new apartment is comfortable, not what she’d really pictured in her mind. It’s messy, with papers and books strewn on chairs and tables but it’s clean. The wall leading to the corridor of his room is filled with picture frames of his family and friends. She doesn’t recognize most of them… it almost feels bittersweet. Jean was always good at making friends, she just didn’t know it was so easy to let their past be consumed.

She pulls the towel from around her neck and dries her hair, afraid to wet the couch. He was nice enough to bring her in, she can’t possible overstep her welcome. Especially when she’d pushed this all on him so suddenly. She frowns to herself, hands slowing in her hair. She was careless to let him meet her, inconsiderate and burdensome.

His voice snaps her out of her thoughts, “I won’t let you take a Tylenol on an empty stomach,” he calls from the kitchen.

Jean has been standing in front of the stove since she’d come out of the shower, she wonders why he’s going to so much trouble.

A few more minutes slip by and he finally walks out to the living room. He brings her the only hot meal he’s capable of making: instant ramen. Belatedly, she gives a strained laugh into her steaming noodles.

“What?” Jean questions, steam drifting out from his own bowl and over his face.

She answers after a long while, having a few bites of the ramen and swirling her chopsticks in the bowl as she mulls over her words.

“Isn’t it funny? Even after all this time… All of us… We never grew up.”

The memories come back like a direct hit of lighting. They were all so young back then, fooling around on the bleachers where Sasha and Connie put on ‘dinner and show’ every lunchtime, skipping classes to watch movies edged on by Annie and Ymir, cramming for exams the night before — well except Armin. The little parties they’d have in Reiner’s home, the nights always ending with Bertholt half-anxiously and half-angrily telling them to ‘take their drunk asses home’. Historia’s cabin in the woods as a staple winter break adventure, the road trip on the way always guided by Marco. And those stolen moments she had with Eren—

The hushed conversations when she’d follow him out as he snuck onto the rooftop of the cabin. The vague questions he’d pose while music blared in the back, the ones she could never answer that always left her wondering, hoping. The soft smiles he would flash her when he’d say to keep their conversations secret. Hot tears, she remembers wiping them away from his cheeks, when he’d fight with Historia. Yells, she can still feel how they rung in her ears, when he would tell her to leave him alone. Anger, she knows it bore into her vision hard enough to never be wiped from her mind, when he would let all out in front of her.

Her throat starts to seize up again but she stuffs in more food to stop herself from crying. Jean has seen enough of it tonight, and she knows her headache will only intensify if she continues down that miserable route. She squeezes her eyes shut, praying it will stop her eyes from betraying her.

Jean’s gaze pulls to the fridge where he’s stuck all the postcards he received from the year Sasha and Connie took to travel the world after graduating from culinary and aviation school respectively. His eyes drag down to the signed book sitting on the coffee table in front of them, Armin’s first publication released two years ago. Between some other books on the shelf by the corridor lays an envelope with an offer of a position at Reiner’s company. Scattered around his home are pieces of all their friends in all the new lives they’ve embarked on.

His eyes fall to Mikasa’s hand, a single silver band sits on her dainty finger. She’d first shown it to Jean back when Eren and her had first moved to this city together. It’d been three years now. He wonders if Eren knows what a ‘promise’ really is. 

She must sense his eyes on her then, she finally looks to him. He decides to answer her, pinning her in place with his stare.

“I think most of us grew up.”

Mikasa is stuck there for a moment, frown slowly pulling on her face. She looks away, masking it under the excuse of putting the bowl onto the table. Jean matches her movements, noticing half of her bowl still steaming and full.

He turns to her and sees her eyes boring into the clock, half past midnight now.

“Hey…” she looks to him at the sound of his voice, “Don’t worry about it tonight. I’ll take the couch and in the morning I’ll drive you to Sasha’s.”

Her brows scrunch together as she looks down to her hands, slowly shaking her head, “I… I think I’ll go visit my parents.”

He thinks for a second, “Hmm… Okay, if we want to get there before night we’ll have to leave kind of early—”

Mikasa’s head whips up, eyes almost bugging out of her head.

“What—”

“You don’t— You—” she searches his face because she can’t believe his words, she whispers then, “You would drive me all the way?”

Jean blinks, like it is so simple, “Of course I would.”

Because it is simple.

He would do anything for her.

And when Mikasa sits here in the silence between them her mind whirrs at a speed that leaves her dizzy.

He came in minutes when she called his number on the night with the most turbulent weather. He held her in the rain, shielding her from the cold and in his warm apartment, tight enough to numb the heartache. He listened to it all, the story, the cries, the hiccups and the uneven breathing at the end of it. He brought her into his home, let her wash up and eat. He made sure she wouldn’t get sick, asking her to take a painkiller for the headache and coughs that had already surfaced.

And now, now he says to stay here and sleep. That he’ll take her wherever she asks in the morning. Like he needs to see her feel even just a little better than she does right now. Like he would do anything for her.

She isn’t used to it.

Mikasa smiles, tears stinging her eyes when she pulls him into a hug. His arms wrap around her.

This is more familiar, Jean thinks. This is like those dreams. Calm, quiet, cozy and it feels like home.

And if he holds onto her tight enough he can just pretend she’s thinking of him. Of him. Just him. Him and not Eren.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading ! please let me know your thoughts in the comments! still debating on whether to make this a multiple chaptered fic or not


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